Foreword

 

We are pleased to present to you an Teke-French dictionary, one of the many resources that will help you perfect your use of Teke and explore its richness.

It is an indispensable tool for all those who are looking for clear, reliable and easily accessible information on the Teke language: learners or students, occasional or regular writers, lovers of word games, simply curious or lovers of words.

Our hope is that this dictionary will become a reference document for the preservation and promotion of the Teke language in general, and the Tyɛɛ dialect in particular, spoken in the Departments of Pool (Kimba and Vindza districts) and Bouenza (Kingoué district), in the Republic of Congo.

Our preliminary research indicates that the Teke Lali dialect, whose speakers live in southern Lékoumou and Bouenza (Nsiaki districts), is also close to the Tyee language, and that this dictionary could also serve these populations.

This dictionary adopts a standardized orthography that is generally in harmony with proposals for standardization of writing in Congolese languages (Lumwamu 1986).

From our writing of this dictionary, two relevant remarks emerge:

1. In the spoken language, there are many elisions, which is not to be encouraged in the written language. However, we want to avoid too much discrepancy between the written forms and their spoken realizations.
2. The Teke language is influenced by neighboring national and international languages. Those of the older generation often complain that the younger generation no longer has a command of it.

Even if there is a perfect inter-comprehension between the Tyee of the Pool and the Tyee of Bouenza, the problem of lexical variants arises.

Despite the imperfections and gaps in this dictionary, for which we take full responsibility, we consider that it is high time to publish this online document, in hopes that other research will augment and improve it in the future.

We would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere gratitude to our talented and enthusiastic informants in Kimba, Vindza, Kingoué, Brazzaville and elsewhere for their cooperation and the time they have devoted to providing us with information relevant to the production of this dictionary. Our thanks also go to our reviewers and advisors for their various contributions.

Corrections and suggestions for improvement of this dictionary are welcome at: [email protected]

                      The Editor

                                            Chrisnah Renaudot MFOUHOU